Abrasion Damage of Concrete for Hydraulic Structures after Exposure to Freeze-thaw Cycles

Abstract Concrete for hydraulic structures in cold regions is exposed to not only abrasion damage or hydraulic wear but also freeze-thaw (FT) damage. FT cycles may lead to surface or internal damage (though sometimes not observable) which would accelerate abrasion damage and further reduce the durability of hydraulic structures. In this work, a detailed experimental program was proposed to study concrete under the combined action of FT damage and hydraulic abrasion. More specifically, the concrete was first subjected to different FT cycles (0, 50, 75, 100 cycles) and then followed by abrasion test using a sediment-laden flow impact test method. Important parameters including compressive strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity, relative mass loss, abrasion depth as well as its distribution were tested to evaluate the concrete properties. The results indicated that both compressive strength and UPV results show the deterioration of concrete as the FT cycles increase, and air entrainment helps in reducing the deterioration of the properties in general. The exposure of concrete to FT cycles further accelerates the abrasion damage, while air entrainment is not very helpful in reducing the abrasion caused mass loss. Comprehensive analysis of the abraded surfaces is essential to reveal important characteristics of concrete abrasion damage.